Drink You Pretty

Chapter 1: Shadows

"do you have a lighter, man?"

The Swedish accent snapped Jack out of his day dream with a jolt. Sharply turning his head to the side and up, he found a tall, handsome man gazing down at him with a pleading expression. He seemed familiar, and that was because Jack had been eyeing him the whole night in the small, sweaty nightclub they were packed into. He remembered the lingering stares they gave each other as the raw energy of the music pulsed through their bodies, before he slinked outside with a nod and a wink.

He knew the man would follow. He was used to this.

Every Saturday night he would visit somewhere new - usually a densely filled nightclub - and find someone vacuous enough to follow him out into a hidden, dark, back alley.

Not to fuck, but to feed from. 

Jack cringed at the thought. He liked to think he was a gentlemen, with Good values. But after being a vampire for over fifty years, those morals were sort of thrown out the window, seeming almost meaningless.

What he wasn't used to however, was a feeling of nervousness.

Jack clenched his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, as he leaned back against the cold wall of the club and stared back at the man. They were stood to the side of the building, hidden by the shadows and near two large rubbish skips.

"I don't smoke." He said back in a deep Irish voice that was just audible above the distant vibration of music.

Their breaths came out in cloudy puffs against the cold, frigid air around them, although jack's appeared considerably slower. He watched the stranger shivering slightly, and an overwhelming to reach out and wrap him in a hug seized within him. He glanced away quickly, shaking the strange thought from his mind.

"That's too bad..." The man sighed, putting his packet of cigarettes back into his pocket. But he didn't walk away, his reluctance to leave causing Jack to speak up again.

"I didn't say I didn't have a lighter, though." Jack said, reaching for the small green cylinder from the back pocket of his tight, black trousers with a smirk. 

He held it out, staring up into the man's eyes. He watched as they brightened up happily, the stranger nodding once in appreciation before taking out his cigarettes once more, extending his hand to take the lighter from jack.

Still holding eye contact, Jack didn't give him it. Instead, he flicked it, causing a spark and then a flame. It illuminated the man's face in a warm glow and the blonde stubble on his chin seem golden in colour. Jack observed as a look of understanding washed over him. Placing the cigarette to catch aflame quicker - eyelids closing as he breathed in the smoke. 

Jack shoved the lighter back into his pocket and leaned back against the brick wall once more, head tilted to look up at him curiously. The man took in the night sky, head thrown back as he exhaled a long draw of smoke, with his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. 

"Why do you have a lighter, if you don't smoke?" H asked questionably, eyes coming to focus on jack's face.

Jack grinned softly, shrugging his shoulders once before saying casually "never know who'll need one."

The thick smell of smoke surrounded them. Jack always liked the aroma of cigarettes, he wondered why he hadn't tried one yet if he's already dead - but he was quickly broken from his thoughts as he saw the man raising his eyebrows out of surprise.